Color TV technology was amazing, but the price put it outside average Americans’ reach.

But as the technology developed, something happened… The price started to drop. By 1975, manufacturing costs had dropped low enough that TV makers could sell a color TV for just $300 ($1,338 in today’s money).

Once that happened, color TV adoption took off. By the early 1980s, 80% of all TVs sold were in color.

Here’s my point…

Price drives technology adoption.

In other words, when a new technology’s price is high, consumers stay away. When prices drop, they flock to the new technology.

It’s a simple relationship… and very lucrative if you know how to play it.

I call this the mass adoption point (MAP) ratio.

The MAP ratio kicks in when prices get low enough to start driving mass adoption. As I mentioned above, it took color TV 25 years.

The Next Breakout Tech Trend

Just like color TVs, virtual reality headsets and the gear needed to operate them have just been too expensive. Currently, it costs over $2,000 to buy VR hardware.

VR will never go mainstream with a price tag that high… and that’s why I’ve stayed away from it.

Remember the lesson of the color TV?

Virtual reality has just been too expensive… but that’s about to change. A brand-new MAP cycle is set to begin… and that’s why we’re getting into virtual reality now…

This Company Just Triggered a MAP Cycle

As I told you, I’ve been waiting three years for the right time to get into the VR space.

Here’s what has me so confident: A new version of virtual reality called “mixed reality” is going to spur mass adoption by lowering prices.

[“Mixed reality” seamlessly blends virtual images into the real world. An example of this tech is the smash-hit game Pokémon Go. In the game, Pokémon (short for pocket monsters) are projected into the real world, and players try to capture them.]

Leading the charge is Microsoft…

Later this year, it will launch a $500 mixed reality headset called HoloLens. It’s 75% cheaper than today’s $2,000 virtual reality setups. This move by Microsoft will attract millions of new consumers.

It’s just like what happened with color TVs in 1975. As soon as the price dropped, mass adoption took off.

Microsoft’s aggressive pricing is sure to pressure other manufacturers to lower their prices as well. By the end of the year, we may crack the $199 price point, and that will unleash another wave of consumer buying.

Microsoft has bigger plans than just the HoloLens.

The key to Microsoft’s mixed reality ambitions is Windows 10, its new operating system that supports mixed reality headsets.

The company will be releasing its Windows 10 Creators Update in the spring of 2017. It will feature a set of mixed reality tools for developers to use.

This is important. Any mixed reality headset will need an operating system to run on. And Windows 10 will support any mixed reality device. That gives Microsoft the opportunity to become the standard operating system for all mixed reality devices.

Mergers and acquisitions research firm Digi-Capital expects the sales of these devices to go from zero to $90 billion in just three years.

To put that in perspective, it took 10 years for smartphones to hit $90 billion in global revenue.

That’s not a typo. This technology is expected to grow faster than the smartphone market did.

Microsoft isn’t the only tech giant getting on the bandwagon. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are all aboard, too. Each is working on its own version of mixed reality technology.

If you own any of these companies, we recommend hanging on to them. This new MAP cycle will take all of them much higher.